Method of making toy drums



July 11, 1939; R H. HIERS METHOD OF MAKING TOY DRUMS 2 Sheets-Shet 1Original Filed May 13, 1936 INVENTOR @LPH /7. Is /5R6 WZM A oRuevs July11, 1939. H. HIERS 2,165,379

METHOD OF MAKING TOY DRUMS Original Filed May 13, 1936 2 Sheets-Sheet 21 v V 7 /.6 v #,-fi a VENTOR @QQZ Patented July 11, 1939 a UNITED STATESPATENT OFFECE METHOD OF MAKING TOY DRUMS Ralph H. Pliers, Granville,Mass.

7 Original application May 13, 1936, Serial No.

Divided and this application May 12,

1937, Serial-- No. 142,151

3 Claims.

This invention relates to an improved method of making toy drums. Thisapplication is a division of my copending application Serial No. 79,441,filed May-l3, 1936.

I am aware is shown in my own Patent 1,783,843, December 2, 1930. Thatpatent shows a diaphragm supporting structure and method of securing thediaphragm to the structure.

The present invention is directed-to a method of securing two diaphragmssimultaneously to a diaphragm supporting structure, one diaphragm ateach end, so that a complete drum is made. It is cheaper to use thismethod of manufacture and the product is a simpler structure of betterquality than with the prior art way.

-For a disclosure of the invention I refer to the accompanying drawings,in which- Fig. 1 is a generalview of the complete drum; 1 Fig. 2 is across-section of the drum parts at an intermediate manufacturing stageand showing some of the tools;

Fig. 3 is a cross-section of the drum assembly I as made in the finalpress; and

Fig. 4 is a plan view of a clamping tool used. The outer cylindricalwall I of the drum is I preferably of sheet metal; the liner wall 2 isof thin wood, metal, Celluloid, or cardboard-preferably the last. Thedrum diaphragms may be of any drum diaphragm material in the prior art.But toy drum diaphragms have been made of paper material reenforced withopen woven fabric mesh in the paper. This material will stretch enoughfor my purpose and is what I use and to the exact size that the liner isto have in the finished drum. The overlapping ends are fastened bysewing, pasting, or otherwise, to hold this size. I place diaphragm 4upside down on a fiat surface of support 1. This support is, forconvenience, recessed, as shown in Fig. 2, so that the margin ofdiaphragm 4 overhangs an annular recess 8 in support 1. I placecylindrical liner 2 so as to rest on the outer flat margin of thediaphragm 4 with skirt 5 extending upwardly and outwardly about asshown. I place diaphragm 3 upside down on thetop ofliner 2 incorresponding position; as shown. I place a weight 9 on top of thediaphragm 3. This weight,

The best prior method of manufacture of which 7 position.

temporarily kept in place, is made sufficient to hold the parts for-anassembly step to be described. I place the sheet metal wall'materia'l I,preferably shaped with its edges first slightly curved inwardly as seenin Fig. 2, insurrounding relation to the previous assembly. The recess 8of the support is dimensioned sothat when the wall material isplaced insupported position about as shown, the parts will be centrally assembledand'in balanced relation.

With the parts as shown in Fig. 2, Iapply a hand squeezer or wrappertool9, seen in plan in Fig. 4 and insection in Figs. 2 and 3. This tool (orits equivalent) is used to wrap the wall 5 around the liner 2 from theposition of the parts in Fig. 2 to the position of Fig. 3 and holdthem'in the latter position until the press parts of Fig. 3 performthefinal assembly operation by crimping the parts into permanent holdingThe tool 9 operates on a pivot 10 with handles l I, somewhat like alemon squeezer.

, The stop i2 is provided to limit the degree of pressure.

The tool 9' is placed so as to embrace the loose wall I, as in Fig. 2,Then by bringingthe handles together as tightly as stop i2 will permit,the wall i is tightly wrapped around the assembly held by weight 9 onsupport 1. As the wall I goes into final wrapped position, its endsoverlap and the inner surface of wall I engages the skirts 5 and 6 ofthe diaphragms, wiping them into tight engagement with the margins ofliner wall 2, the pleats in the skirts 5 and 6 assisting in the desiredmovement.

When the parts are thus assembled by tool 9, the temporary holdingweight 9 is removed. Thewhole tightly held assembly is then taken by theholding handles ll of tool 9' from the support 1 in Fig. 2 to thecrimping press, indicated in Fig. 3. It will be readily understood thatin this press the work is held by tool 9' while platen l4 presses itdown on anvil IS with crimping dies in the press parts to roll the beads15 and iii to simultaneously fasten both diaphragms 3 and a permanentlyto the drum walls and liner and preferably so as to tighten thediaphragm in the final step. The final locking joint for the assembly isof the same character as the joint of my prior patent. But it will beseen by comparison with that patent that in this improvement the wholedrum is completed by assembling all the parts and forming the top andbotprior patent, it required much study and experimenting to discover apractical way to apply both drum heads simultaneously to the oppositeends of a single side wall support, as I now disclose.

In the use of my improved method the snares may be inserted, if desired,as in my previous patent. 7

While I have referred to the product of my method as a toy drum, it willbe clear to those in the toy trade that the method is equally applicableto any of the various drum-like noise instruments, called for exampletom-toms, banjos (with one diaphragm used as a sounding board, rattles,and various other names.

Previous to the conception of the present invention, so far as I amaware, toy drums were not made with the desired parts assembled andjoined together as I have herein disclosed, but on the contrary it wasthought necessary to proceed by more devious methods.

Having disclosed my invention, I claim:

1. The method of making a toy drum which consists in forming a cylinderto predetermined drum diameter from stiff but yieldable material such ascardboard and celluloid sheets, forming two disk-shaped members fromdrum head material, placing said members on the ends of the cylinder,wrapping the cylinder with a sheet of drum body material such as sheetmetal and overlapping said sheet on the cylinder, and, while holding thewrapped sheet tightly on the cylinder and with the cylinder empty,rolling down the edges of said sheet at each end to permanently pinchthe periphery of both drum heads, the lining material and the Wrappingmaterial into a permanent drum structure, the material of said drumheads being tensioned in said last-named step.

2. The method of making a toy drum which consists in forming each drumhead out of sheet material with an integral narrow flange flaringoutwardly around its periphery, forming a liner cylinder to the exactdiameter of the drum, closing the ends of said cylinder by placing thedrum heads thereon and with the cylinder empty, supporting this assemblyin position to wrap sheet metal around it for the drum body, placing aweight on the top drum head to hold the assembly in position for thewrapping operations, and then tightly wrapping said assembly with sheetmetal so that the ends of the metal overlap, holding the assembly thuswrapped and simultaneously rolling the edges of the sheet metal in a diepress so as to bring said edges into a circular seam at the periphery ofthe drum heads with a pinching, tightening grip on the periphery of eachdrum head whereby the material of said drum heads is tensioned for thedrumming function.

3. The method of making a toy drum which consists in forming twodisk-shaped members by pressing them out of drum head material, forminga liner cylinder of cardboard having the exact interior diameter of thedrum, placing one drum head disk-shaped member right side up on asupport, placing the lining cylinder on top of that drum head, placingthe other drum head member upside down on top of the cylinder to closesaid cylinder while empty, placing a single cylindrical sheet of metalwith its lower edge on a support slightly below the lower drum head andwith its ends overlapping and in condition to slide together to decreasethe diameter of the cylinder of sheet metal, said sheet extending abovethe upper drum head so as to center the assembly, placing a temporaryweight on the upper drum head enough to hold the assembly except for thesaid cylindrical sheet of metal, then applying a forming tool a, ustsaid cylindrical sheet of' metal to wrap it around the assembly of saiddrum heads and liner so as to clamp the drum heads and liner within saidcylindrical sheet of metal, and finally While so clamped' pressing theupper and lower edges of the said cylindrical sheet of metal into arolled seam to permanently fasten the drum parts together and in saidlast step tensioning the drum head material on each end of the drum forthe drumming function.

RALPH H. HIERS.

